Finding Memories: Poetry from a Troubled Youth

by Matthew Williams

I called it plugging in. I used to tie my afro into a bun, swing my book bag across one shoulder and step outside. I would put my headphones in, turn the music off and walk. If you saw me you would think I was listening to music, but I was not. It was my escape. It’s funny how things evolve and change. A simple act of trying to escape, blend in, or rather just exist has taken on new meaning. Plugging in, now, means placing my headphones in my ears and letting the music take me away. It has become a tool that I use to write my poetry. It allows me to escape.
When thinking about this book, there was a part of me that wanted to get back to my roots. This collection of poetry is about time, loss, things we have forgotten, long for—the people who seem so far away, and yet in our thoughts every day, from my family back in Philadelphia, to friends in Texas and Nepal, and those who have passed away.
This volume of poetry is meant to help you, the reader, to understand how I see the world. So I encourage you to not see me as the poem, but rather see the poem as me. In other words, understand that not every poem is about me, and yet, I am in every poem. Along those lines, in helping you, the reader to understand the emotion behind my poetry, I had photographs commissioned for this volume. The purpose of this project was to merge photography and poetry together in order to show you the reader just how I view the world around me, but more importantly, to explain the meaning behind a select few poems without providing a written explanation. And so, once again, I am plugging in. I place my headphones in my ears and begin to walk. I look around as the music pulses through my veins, and I admire just how beautiful the world is, then I begin to wonder.
Plugging in. It is my escape.

105 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 17, 2017